The present invention relates to the art of harness restraint systems, and, in particular, to an improved system which provides safety and comfort to seat occupants, especially those in high performance aircraft.
In the art of vehicle passenger restraint, continual efforts are made to provide harness restraint systems which are safe in all conditions and convenient so that the vehicle occupant will find use thereof unobtrusive and thus be encouraged to use the restraint system. The value of such a system in privately owned vehicles has become increasingly important because of recently enacted mandatory seat belt laws, and the value of such systems in high performance vehicles, such as aircraft, has been realized for years.
One type of system which has been found particularly convenient includes a single-point release mechanism to which all harness latch plates terminating the belts of the restraint system can be connected at a point at the center of the body below the rib cage. See, for example, U.K. patent specification No. 915,168 of Harley Patents (International) Limited, which discloses a single point release mechanism.
Clearly, a single-point release system of this type has advantages over parallel strap multi-connection systems, such as accessibility to either hand of the occupant and ease of operation. In the case of high performance vehicles, such as aircraft, a single-point release as described above has the obvious advantage of facilitating egress from the aircraft, or in releasing the parachute harness, since the occupant must be able to separate instantly under emergency conditions as in the case of fire or ocean ditching. Furthermore, the occupant must be able to detach from the harness in a loaded condition which can result from being suspended, e.g., from a tree, or in an inverted position.
High performance aircraft undergoing violent air combat maneuvers often subject aircrewmen to acceleration loads which displace them so far out of position that control of the aircraft becomes impossible. A restraint harness is being designed to reduce vertical "z" and lateral "y" displacement in ejection seats and parachute harnesses for which the single-point release system can readily be adapted.
Regardless of the advantages of a single-point release system, certain problems remain which must be overcome to optimize safety and convenience. For example, harness systems employing single-point release have been found to have reduced lateral control for high G-load turns, spins and other maneuvers, because, among other things, the location of the shoulder straps causes them to drop off the shoulder in the loosened condition, effectively rendering the occupant's upper body unharnessed. Furthermore, the shoulder strap location is annoying to the female body form because of the constant pressure on or around the breasts. These problems are not solved by designing the single-point release system for positioning over the chest because of the increased injury potential under crash conditions. In order to minimize injury from the harness system, the single-point latching device is ideally positioned over the abdomen.
Other problems encountered in single-point release systems are associated with securing the occupant down against the seat, such as by anti-gravity straps and/or lower harness support straps. Normally a single point release device requires a strap configuration in which the strap be fixed and extended between the legs of the occupant, which can result in obvious discomfort in certain occupant-displacement situations.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide an improved single-point release harness system which overcomes the problems set forth above and other problems associated with such systems, while affording the occupant optimum comfort and convenience.